


Five Days in Isolation

by circ_bamboo



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-24
Updated: 2010-06-24
Packaged: 2017-10-12 20:07:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/128558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/circ_bamboo/pseuds/circ_bamboo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/where_no_woman/108256.html?view=1049056#t1049056">here</a>: <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/where_no_woman/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://community.livejournal.com/where_no_woman/"><strong>where_no_woman</strong></a>'s First Anniversary Ficathon. 11. A reboot version of Dr. Elizabeth Dehner treats Pike in the wake of the Narada.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Days in Isolation

**Author's Note:**

> I had to retcon a lot in order to make this work. Liz Dehner is now ten years older than she supposedly is, by canon. While canon also states that she's 5'2", Sally Kellerman is 5'10", so I'm using the latter measurement. Boyce is Surgeon General, um, because. And yes, I know that Starfleet wasn't using the gel-decontamination protocol in the mid-2200s, but I figure if they needed a little extra oomph, they'd resurrect it.
> 
> WARNINGS: PTSD, panic attacks, and related.

**Day 1**

The minute Dr. Elizabeth Dehner beamed into the isolation chamber, she knew something was wrong. She hit the intercom button perhaps a second after she rematerialized. "Ensign, what happened?"

"Uh, nothing happened, Dr. Dehner. You beamed in fine. You should have been decontaminated."

Liz raised one hand to her hair, felt the weird powder that was all that remained of the decontaminant gel after transport. She wiped her hand absently on her lab coat. "Carry on." She was still entirely sure that something was wrong, but felt for the hypospray in her left pocket and the tricorder in the right.

Turning to Captain Pike, lying somewhat propped up on a biobed, she said, "I'm sorry, sir. How are you?"

"They depilled my chest," he complained, scratching, although Liz knew the depilator gel didn't actually cause any itch. "And—other parts."

"At least they didn't take the hair on your head," she pointed out. It was still there, wet, and forming little ringlets around his face. She might have been amused, if she hadn't been so nervous.

Pike reached up one hand to scrub through his hair. "Yeah. I guess if it made it through the last four surgeries, they're going to let me keep it."

"The first dose is here," she said, holding up her hypospray. "I'll give it to you, and you'll probably fall asleep until tomorrow. You'll be under the neuroregen for four hours, and it will automatically turn off." She tapped the swinging arm with the neuroregeneration unit attached. "There will be nurses and aides and doctors and orderlies around all night, but you've got a comm, and my number is programmed in. If you wake in the middle of the night and have any questions or want to talk to me for any reason at all, call. I don't care if it's 0300."

"I can call you if I have a nightmare and you'll bring me warm milk?" Pike raised an eyebrow.

She laughed. "No warm milk, Captain Pike; it's a bit below my pay grade." He smiled as well. "I've got to do some scans first to make sure that my calculations are correct."

"Scan away," Pike said, with a wave of one hand.

Liz held the tricorder over his head, checked to see if he'd actually been properly decontaminated, and then checked his hormone levels. _Decontamination, check. Hormones, what I'd expected._ Whatever it was that had gone wrong or was going to go wrong wasn't related to his treatment, but the itch was still there, at the back of her brain.

"So why can't I have the regular stuff?" he asked. "I didn't know there was a limit on the number of doses of zithroxaline you could have."

"It's cardiotoxic," she said. "You're right at the edge where the next dose probably won't actually stop the PTSD but it will probably start weakening your heart."

Pike heaved an exaggerated sigh. "So the next best thing gets me stuck in an isolation chamber for five days."

"Count yourself lucky," she said. "The trials of neucintex had people in isolation for a full twenty-one days."

He shuddered. "Isn't that counterproductive? I mean, isn't the point of this stuff to keep me from going crazy?"

Liz dialed up the correct dose on the hypo and said, "PTSD is a physiological response to severe adverse events. It isn't 'crazy.' Tip your head up, please, sir."

Pike obligingly presented her with the side of his neck, and she pressed the hypo in gently. "There are some who would argue that Starfleet captains are crazy by definition," he said.

"I'm a psychiatrist," Liz said tartly. "I've seen much crazier than you." He laughed, and she held the tricorder out over him again—biobeds weren't great at scanning brain chemistry—and watched the numbers change, exactly to where she wanted them. "Good," she said. "You're probably getting tired. I can stay until you fall asleep, or I can send in a nurse, or whatever you'd like."

Pike yawned. "If you can wait a few minutes, I'm sure I'll be asleep then." He hit the button to flatten the bed.

Liz heard _Please don't leave me alone_ and nodded, turning the neuroregen on and sitting on the chair next to the bed.

"So no one's allowed to see me for the next five days?" he said.

"Anyone who isn't actually sick or wounded can," she said. "They just have to be decontaminated the way we both were."

He yawned again. "So no more debriefing."

"I was given to understand that you had already undergone at least a preliminary round, after your first two surgeries."

"Yes, but you know the admiralty. How on earth did you get them to agree to this?"

 _I told them it would be easier to debrief you if you weren't on the verge of a panic attack the whole time._ "It wasn't me," she said. "Dr. Boyce and Dr. McCoy out-yelled them."

Pike smiled. "I bet they did." He yawned a third time, his jaw cracking.

"The intercom still works," she said, "but you'll be sleeping a lot, and it would probably be better if you didn't overexert yourself, sir."

"Yeah, sure," he said, slurring even those two syllables. His eyes were closed, hands folded on his chest; the lines in his face were starting to smooth out.

Liz smiled and kept talking. "Although if you want to talk to anyone, I'm sure we can make that happen. Keeping you occupied is most likely a good thing."

"Mmmm," Pike said.

"Good night, Captain Pike," she said. He was clearly asleep by that point, and didn't respond.

She tiptoed over to the intercom, turned the volume down, and spoke quietly into the receiver. "O'Reilly, beam me out."

"Uh, sorry, Dr. Dehner, but there appears to be a malfunction in the intraoffice transporter unit."

"What do you mean, Ensign?"

"Well, sir, I'm not entirely sure, but my CO says that we can't transport you out of there right now without compromising the seal on the room."

"How long before it's fixed?" she asked.

"Uh, sir, I don't have that information, either," Ensign O'Reilly said.

Liz sighed. "Okay. Keep me posted." She sat back down in the chair by Pike's bed—fortunately it was reasonably comfortable—and looked around the room. The walls were pleasantly blue, and a holo of the Starfleet campus decorated the wall behind her, opposite the window to the decontamination chamber. A small holoscreen was on an arm by Pike's head, and a larger one was on the wall past the foot of his bed. _He'll be fine in here,_ she thought, and started working on her reports.

An hour later, she checked Pike's numbers—still exactly as expected—and pinged the ensign. "How's that transporter unit coming?" As soon as she asked the question, she knew what the answer would be.

"Dr. Dehner, sir, we still don't have an estimated time of repair." _Yep. That._

"Is it possible that you could consult with someone else on this matter? I have things to do other than sit in an isolation chamber."

"Yes, sir; we'll get back to you shortly, sir."

Liz waited another entire hour—by which time she'd had to cancel an appointment and a meeting—before she contacted Ensign O'Reilly again. "Ensign, tell me what the hell is going on."

"Liz, it's Phil Boyce here."

 _Oh, shit._ "I'm sorry, Dr. Boyce, sir. Do you happen to know what's going on?"

"No worries, Liz, I'd be demanding to know what the hell is going on if I were in your situation. Apparently something went wrong—I don't know exactly what; I'm not a physicist—and the decontamination chamber attached to Chris's isolation chamber has been compromised. Second, the intraoffice beaming unit needs to be replaced, as its decontamination isn't decontaminating any more. And, last but not least, there's been an outbreak of Andorian flu, so we're being extra careful."

"What does that mean, sir?"

"Well, unless you haven't dosed him yet, I hope you and Chris can get along, because you're stuck in there for at least another twenty-four hours, and possibly longer. Unfortunately, because you're stable and he's stable and there's no real need to get you out of there other than your own sanity, you're not exactly a top priority."

"Wouldn't the intraoffice beaming unit be a priority? Oh, never mind," Liz said. This _sucked_. "Just contact me when I can get out of here. And maybe beam me in a change of clothing or an inflatable mattress or something."

"Sorry, Liz, can't do that either. You're stuck with what you've got in the room. I assume your hypo has enough stuff to last at least another day?" Dr. Boyce said.

Liz checked it. "I've got the full five doses in here, plus antihistamines and some other miscellaneous stuff."

"No painkillers?"

"He can't have any until the neucintex regimen is over. That's why you did the nerve blocks without opioids."

"I meant for you," he said. "He can give anyone a headache."

"I heard that," came from the bed. Liz turned to look at Pike, who was awake and had tipped the bed up a few inches.

"Good for you," Dr. Boyce said. "Liz, I'll have Jake cancel all your appointments for the next day. Chris, don't kill her."

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Phil. Go back to your miniature trees," Pike said.

"Later, Liz, Chris. Boyce out."

Liz turned the intercom off and said to Pike, "You heard that, huh?"

"Enough," he said, the lines between his eyebrows reappearing as he pushed the neuroregen to one side. "Didn't it occur to them that this means you'll have to help me to the bathroom?"

She froze for a moment, and said, "Well, thank goodness I'm so damn tall." _This is_ not _in my job description!_ "How are we going to do this?"

"There's a hoverchair in the corner," he said, "and bars all around the bathroom. You don't actually have to, well . . ." He flushed. "Just get me in there, and I'm pretty sure I can take care of the rest."

Liz found a rubber band in her pocket and used it to put her hair up in a ponytail. "Okay," she said. She dragged the hoverchair over from where it had been parked in the corner, and held out a hand to Pike, who used it to pull himself to a seated position and swing his legs off the bed. She ducked under his arm, pulled him up to standing, and deposited him in the 'chair a moment later. "That wasn't that bad," she said.

"No," he said, poking at the control board and turning the 'chair around.

"Call me if you need help?" She bit her lip and crossed her fingers and really, really hoped he wouldn't need any help because that was just _too weird_.

He raised both eyebrows at her, over his shoulder. "Let's hope it doesn't come to that, Dr. Dehner."

"God, let's hope," she muttered under her breath as the door shut behind him.

Liz waited nearby, tapping her fingers against the wall, the entire time he was in the bathroom, but he emerged about ten minutes later, looking about the same as he did when he'd gone in. "When I get out of here," he said, "remind me to thank whoever it was who designed Starfleet's PT regimen."

"Sure," she said, suppressing a smile, as she hoisted him back into the bed. "Hungry?"

"Not yet," he said, shaking out his wrists and pulling the neuroregen back over. "Maybe another nap."

"Okay." She went back to her chair, sat, and pulled up an article on the history of cognitive behavioral therapy.

"So tell me about your childhood," Pike said, staring at the ceiling, a few minutes later.

Liz looked up. "Aren't you supposed to be sleeping?"

"Can't," he said. "I figure stories about your idyllic childhood in Iowa will put me to sleep." He raised his head and smiled, and she knew it was supposed to be a joke.

"Jim Kirk's from Iowa," she replied. "I'm from the suburbs of Chicago."

"And your childhood wasn't idyllic?"

"I had a sister," Liz said. _Also esper talents._

"So did I," Pike said. "Also two parents, a dog, and a horse."

"You had a horse?"

"I have two horses now, Tango and Poppy."

Liz started. "You have horses named Tango and Poppy, sir?"

Pike sighed. "Why does no one believe me?" He reached over, picked up his padd, touched it a few times, and held it out to her. She stood and walked over to the bed, taking the padd and looking at a holo of a golden horse and a brown one, standing next to a barn, Captain Pike standing between them. "The brown one is Tango, and the palomino is Poppy."

"I believe you have horses, sir, but I don't believe you named them Tango and Poppy," she said, handing the padd back.

"Well, Tango is actually Tango the Second, and my father named Tango the First, but I did decide to keep the name. Poppy came with the name," he admitted, and she laughed. "So back to your childhood—which was, what, last year?"

"If you want to know how old I am, sir, it's in my file."

He sighed again. "I'm making conversation, Dr. Dehner. If we're stuck in here for another twenty-some hours, and possibly even more than that, I'd really appreciate it if you had a mode other than 'doctor' and 'lieutenant.'"

Liz stared at him for a moment, blinking, and said, "Liz," holding out a hand.

"Chris," he said, shaking it.

"I'm still not going to tell you how old I am," she warned.

"I won't tell you how old I am," he said.

"Okay, then."

 **Day 2**

Liz woke up sometime after dawn, her neck hurting, and considered lying on the floor for a while. It couldn't be less comfortable than two chairs pushed together. She'd set her padd to wake her up if Pike—Chris's biosigns got out of a certain range, and they hadn't. The neucintex had originally been used as an anti-insomnia drug, after all. Taking the padd with her and grabbing a pair of scrubs out of the dispenser, she tiptoed into the restroom and took a quick shower. She ran her uniform and underlayers through the sonic cleaner and put some of them back on, leaving the dress and lab coat hanging on a hook.

The scrubs were scaled for the captain, but as she was only a couple inches shorter than he was, she didn't have to roll up the pant legs or anything. The shirt bagged around her waist, but she'd put up with that to wear something other than the damn uniform. She looked in the mirror above the sink—her hair was a frizzy blonde disaster beyond saving without her own collection of chemicals and implements. She flattened it as best she could with her hands and put it in the tightest ponytail she could stand.

Pike was still asleep—no surprise there—so she rolled up the blanket she'd found last night and used it as a pillow, stretching out on the floor. _Ahhhh._ She found the latest novel to hit the best-seller lists and started reading.

The book wasn't even remotely _good_ , but it was so engrossing that she didn't notice that Chris had awakened until he said, "What are you doing down there?"

Liz started, and sat up quickly. "Um. I was sick of the chair?" she said, turning red.

"Makes sense," he said, but he still looked amused. "If you can grab me some breakfast, I'll leave you alone until you finish what you're doing."

"Oh, no problem," she said. Checking the chrono—it was just before 1000—she took the cards from him and went to the food slot. "It's almost time for your drugs, as well."

"How much longer are you stuck in here?"

"Trying to get rid of me, Captain?" she said, holding out a bowl of cereal and a glass of orange juice on a tray.

"Always," he said with a smile, taking his tray, and Liz's stomach dropped. _No wonder he's such a successful recruiter_ , she thought. _It's not fair. He smiles at you and all of a sudden you want to_ do _things, like save the world._

Chris fell asleep again after she dosed him, and she turned the neuroregen on before finishing her book. Later, she sent a quick textcomm to whoever was manning the local transport station and got back a terse _We're still working on it, Dr. Dehner. We'll give you news when we have it._ She sighed, and sent a longer message to her parents, explaining why she probably wouldn't be calling them that evening.

He woke up around 1400, hungry again, and she got both of them some food. She finished before he did, and went to clean up.

As Liz stared at her reflection over the sink and held her hands in the sonic cleaner, she frowned. Something was—wrong. If not yet, then very soon. She shook her hands off ineffectually—they weren't wet, obviously—and left the bathroom.

Chris was still eating some sort of protein bar, so Liz sat down and picked up her padd.

A minute or so later, he said, sounding strained, "Liz?" She looked up immediately; his face was red and he started gasping for air and clawing at his throat. Before she could think, she'd dialed up an antihistamine and stuck it in his neck.

"Chris, I gave you an antihistamine, it should kick in almost right away. Everything will be fine." She kept up the semi-soothing nonsense. A few moments later, his face was still red and he hadn't stopped gasping, although the antihistamine should have kicked in— _Shit._ The allergic reaction had triggered a panic attack. She looked up at the biobed to confirm—no airway restriction but elevated heart rate, blood pressure, and respiration. "Chris," she said in a firmer voice. "Look at me. Focus on my voice. You can breathe."

"No, I fucking can't!" he snapped.

"Yes, you fucking can," she said. "Look at me. Take a deep breath."

"What the fuck makes you think I can take a deep breath?"

"You can breathe enough to talk, so you can breathe enough to take a deep breath. Focus. This is a panic attack. I gave you an antihistamine. You can breathe. No more protein bars. You're in an isolation room at Starfleet Medical on Earth, with me, Liz Dehner, your psychiatrist, and if I say it's a panic attack, it's a panic attack, and you can fight this off because you're a fucking Starfleet captain and you eat ensigns for breakfast. Here." She held out her hand, and he took it gingerly. "Breathe in." He was still gasping shallowly. "Inhale and count to three," she said. "Chris, you can do this. It's only breathing." _God._ The only person she'd ever talked out of a panic attack in her life was herself. She hoped like hell that this would work.

Chris inhaled, shakily and much faster than she wanted, but held it for what some might charitably call a count of three before he exhaled. "There. Are you happy?"

"This isn't about me, Chris, this is about you. Inhale again, and take four counts to do it."

He did, still shaky, and exhaled in a _whoosh_. "Liz, this isn't fucking working."

"Yes, it is. Look at me." He did, finally, gray eyes meeting hers. "Inhale and take four counts to do it and then exhale, taking four counts to do it."

He fought her—and the panic—every step of the way, but she had him mostly breathing normally after another five minutes. His heart rate and blood pressure were still a bit elevated, and he was sweating, but she was pretty sure he was over the worst of it. The antihistamine would knock him out if he calmed down enough, anyway.

"Fuck," Chris said.

"Yeah," she said. "Three more days, and those should mostly go away, and if you do have one, after you're out of here, we can give you something that will stop it before it gets too far."

He sighed. "Yeah." Leaning back, he closed his eyes, but didn't let go of her hand.

"Tired?" Liz asked. He shrugged, and she hooked the chair with her foot and dragged it under her. "The antihistamine I gave you might make you fall asleep."

He nodded, and a tear fell down one cheek. Letting go of her hand, he swiped at it angrily and, with some effort, curled up on his left side, facing away from her and the window to the decontamination room.

Liz sighed—clearly he was mad at himself, which was counterproductive, but this wasn't the time to discuss it. "Chris, may I touch you?"

"Where?" he asked, voice harsh.

"Shoulders, back, upper arm."

"Yeah, all right."

She stroked his back carefully while he took deep, shuddering breaths, watching the biobed readings until she was sure he'd fallen asleep, and went to grab her padd. She dashed off a quick note to Dr. Boyce before anyone questioned the biobed readings from the last few minutes, and got back a terse _OK._ Before she gave up, she sent yet another request for information to Ensign O'Reilly. Maybe, if she reminded them twice a day, Starfleet would get their collective heads out of their collective asses and _fix the damn transporter_.

An hour or two later, a hail came at the annunciator, and Liz looked up, startled. Dr. Leonard McCoy stood in the window, and she motioned for him to be silent as she pulled out her comm.

 _Can I help you?_ she sent to him.

He sent back, _Pike okay?_

 _He's out, thank goodness._

 _—Prognosis?_

 _Numbers are fine, but it's only the second day._

 _—Can you scan him so I can see the numbers for the neuroregen?_

She'd sent them to Chris's file earlier in the day, but sure, why not. Nodding, she stood, headed to the side of the bed, and scanned quickly, sending the numbers over in a textcomm.

Dr. McCoy looked at the results. _Looks fine_ , he sent back. _He pretty much just sleeps all the time?_

 _Twenty or twenty-two hours over the last day, which is about what's expected._

 _—How are you holding up?_

She shrugged. _I've been stuck in worse places with worse company._

Dr. McCoy laughed; she couldn't hear it, but he sent a _Ha!_ via comm. _Keep me posted, okay? Neuroregen numbers by textcomm if you can, and do the scans daily._

She frowned at him. _Of course. I sent them over this morning. Maybe they didn't get posted yet. I'll send them again._

He nodded. _Fine. Thank you, Dr. Dehner._

 _You're welcome._ He left, and she resent the last two sets of results from the scans of Chris's spine to his file again. _Strange,_ she thought.

 **Day 3**

Chris managed to stay asleep throughout the night, and Liz was trying to decide if she should wake him for the meds the next morning when a polite chirp came over the intercom. She turned, and a dark-haired, blue-eyed woman, about her height but ten or fifteen years older, wearing a gold tunic with captain's stripes, stood in the window. Liz touched the intercom. "Can I help you?"

"Dr. Dehner, I—" The woman trailed off. She had dark circles under her eyes and lines on her face. "Chris is just asleep, right? Do you think you can wake him up?"

Liz frowned. "I'm sorry, but he's not available for debriefing."

"It's not debriefing, I promise. It's just—" The woman sighed. "I'm Number One, captain of the U.S.S. _Yorktown_. Chris—I was his XO when he had the ship."

Liz narrowed her eyes at Captain One, looked over at Chris's unmoving back, and abruptly put one and one together and got three. Or, more accurately, put One and Chris together and got something more than a captain-XO relationship. Her face smoothed out, and she said, "Yes, of course, sir. Hold on a second."

Standing about four feet from the bed, she said, quietly, "Chris, can you wake up, please." He stirred but didn't awaken. "Chris," she said, a little louder. "You have a visitor. I think you'll want to talk to her."

He rolled over to look at her, eyes clear but brow furrowed, and caught sight of Captain One in the window. "One," he breathed.

Number One pressed a fist to her mouth, but placed the other hand on the window. "Hello, Chris," she said over the intercom, her voice thick.

Chris looked at Liz, and his face sharpened. "Help me into the chair," he said—no, commanded. Liz found herself nodding and standing up at attention before she went to the corner to push out the hoverchair. She helped him into it, and he directed it over to the window and set it to hovering at a level so that he could look Captain One in the eye. "God, I love you," he said, putting his hand on the glass to match hers.

"I'll just . . ." Liz snagged her padd and sidled into the bathroom. She typed in a code to her padd to make the bathroom soundproof, complete with her medical override, sat on the commode, and tried her damndest not to cry.

Half an hour later, she got a message on her padd. _You can come out now. It's safe._ She blew her nose a final time, unlocked the door, and poked her head out.

Chris had lowered the hoverchair back to the ground and was finishing what looked like a peanut butter sandwich; Number One was nowhere to be seen. "She had a meeting," he said by way of explanation. "She'll be back later. You don't have to hide in the bathroom." His eyes were a bit red, but he was otherwise composed.

"Yeah, I think I do," she said, raising an eyebrow at him as she walked into the room.

He laughed, somewhat bitterly. "You can't possibly imagine how much I want out of this room now."

"You'd be surprised," she retorted.

Chris looked at her and raised an eyebrow. "Oh?" He finished the sandwich and dusted his hands off on his pants.

"I would sell my soul for a real bed with a mattress," she said, ignoring all the other things like _clean underwear_ and _fresh fruit_ and _not being stuck helping a captain to the bathroom_.

He burst out in laughter. "I'm sorry, Liz. You're right. You want the bed for a bit? I'm not going to be sleeping right now."

"I need to give you another dose," she said apologetically.

Sighing, he pinched the bridge of his nose. "Damnit. That means I'm going to sleep for the next three or four hours, right?"

"Probably," she said. "When is Captain One coming back?"

"Two hours or so."

"I can try to wake you up," she offered.

"Do it, then."

She hauled him back into the bed after he'd used the restroom, stuck the hypo in his neck carefully, and, once he'd fallen back asleep, sent a slightly-less patient textcomm to Ensign O'Reilly or his replacement.

She got back, from Dr. Boyce, _Liz, I still don't have any news for you. How are things going along for you and Chris? I see that Number One's back in town._

She replied: _Yeah, I could have used a heads-up on that one._

 _—Above your pay grade, Lieutenant._

 _I figured. We're doing okay. No more allergic reactions or panic attacks. I'm catching up on my leisure reading. He's apparently catching up on sleep. I'm sure the neucintex is helping._

 _—That must be why you haven't killed him yet._

 _Probably. What the heck is going on out there that they're ignoring Captain Christopher R. Pike?_

 _—Well, Jim Kirk is testifying in front of the admiralty; the Vulcans are metaphorically screaming to be left alone; Admiral Komack collapsed yesterday morning but he's fine now (just stress); and a few other things I can't tell you. So nothing important, really._

 _Thank God Pike doesn't know about Kirk's testimony. He'd be demanding a live feed and I'm not 100% sure I could deny it. I'll let you get back to your work, sir._

 _—One of these days I'll retire, and then where will Starfleet be? Boyce out._

Liz sighed, set her padd alarm for an hour and forty-five minutes later, and settled back with a journal article on recent breakthroughs in neuropsychology.

Later, she switched off the alarm before it went off, woke Chris up carefully, dragged him into the chair and threw him in the sonic shower despite his half-asleep protests, did not laugh at his hair standing on end (nor did she take a picture), and had him mostly awake, complaining, and back in the hoverchair before Number One returned.

Liz locked herself in the bathroom, muttering something about not being a chaperone, and waited until Chris told her it was okay to escape. He looked much happier now, albeit sleepy, and she helped him back into bed.

"Aren't you supposed to get me to talk about my mother?" he asked, as she settled the blankets around him and clicked on the neuroregen.

"Freudian psychoanalysis is so twentieth-century," she said, and he laughed. "If you want to talk about anything, we can talk, but research suggests that there's no benefit to starting before you finish the drugs."

"Okay," he said, and yawned. "Maybe tomorrow."

"Maybe tomorrow," she agreed.

 **Day 4**

"So tell me about this esper thing," Chris said, over dinner.

"It's in my file," she said, evading the question. "Also, this was not what I meant when I said we could talk about anything."

"Your _scores_ are in the file," he pointed out. "So what does having the second-highest esper scores for a human ever mean for you?"

 _That's kind of personal_ , she almost said, but then she realized that she'd been helping him to the bathroom for the last three and a half days and she knew about his against-the-regulations relationship, so although sharing that she was good at guessing games was way outside the doctor-patient boundaries, it really wasn't all that much to ask. She sighed. "Think of a number between one and, I don't know, a million. Don't tell me."

"Okay," he said.

"Seven. Come on, Chris, you can do better than that."

He rolled his eyes. "Try again."

"Six hundred twenty-eight thousand, nine hundred four."

"How the fuck did you do that?" he asked.

"ESP." She gave him a _don't be stupid_ look.

"Again."

"Forty-two thousand, five hundred sixty-one."

"Damn," he breathed. "Anything else?"

"Cards, shapes, stars, whatnot."

"That's not what I meant."

Yeah, she knew. "I generally know if something bad is going to happen, but I don't know what it is. This, sir, has no tactical advantage at all. When I did my rotation in an emergency room, I just had a headache constantly. I'm pretty sure if I were posted to a ship for lengthy periods of time, I'd be in the same situation."

Chris sat back against his pillows and rubbed his forehead. "I didn't mean it like that, either."

"I'm not a weapon; I'm not a trained monkey, and I'm not a circus freak." She smiled weakly. "Although I'm not allowed within the city limits of Las Vegas ever."

His eyes widened. "Did you clean out the house?"

"I wish," she said. "No. The Federation keeps track of anyone with an esper rating higher than, well, about half mine, and reports their names to casinos and lotteries and whatnot. On my third birthday, my parents got a letter from the city of Las Vegas—and one from Atlantic City, and another from the entire country of Monaco—saying that I was banned from visiting permanently."

"On your _third_ birthday?" His eyes widened even more. "Wow. They're—thorough."

"That's one way to put it," she said.

"Heh," he said. "Okay. Ask me something stupidly personal, and I'll answer." He gave a rueful half-smile, and she nodded, accepting it for the apology it was.

"I got nothin', sir," she said, after a moment of thought.

He smiled. "Well, I'm sure we'll get to the innermost workings of my brain over the next few months. You are going to continue being my therapist, right?"

Liz took a deep breath. "Well, I don't normally do therapy; I'm mostly a researcher. But I'm sure I'll have to make exceptions."

"Good," he said.

 **Day 5**

Chris woke up before 1000, and as she administered the last dose of the drug, he said, "So when do I get out of here?"

"In twelve to twenty-four hours, when your immune system comes back online, presuming that your brain chemistry numbers stay within the acceptable range."

"That's half a _day_ from now."

"You're a starship captain," she said. "You're not allowed to whine."

He batted at the tricorder. "Mo-om! Doctor's being mean to me."

Liz shook her head. "Everything looks fine. I'm expecting twelve hours from now. How are you feeling?"

"Fine. A little sleepy," he said. "How am I supposed to be feeling?"

"Your hormone levels will be able to tell us how well the neucintex worked, biochemically speaking, but only you can tell us how you actually feel."

"Oh, so _now_ you want me to talk about my mother."

She shook her head at him again and clicked on the neuroregen. "Go to sleep."

"Yes, Doc." He closed his eyes obediently, and Liz took up her post in the chair beside his bed and checked her messages. Nothing interesting there, so she went on to the news feeds, which she hadn't bothered with for a couple days.

 _Blah, blah, the usual gossip_ ; Vulcans possibly have found a planet they want; Admiral Komack collapsed but he's fine; Captain Christopher Pike still in coma— _no, he isn't_ —wait. She checked the source on that last tidbit—a Starfleet press release? What?

 _He's had, what, two visitors since he's been here?_ No one would give her information on how long it would take to get out—Liz abruptly stood up, locked herself in the bathroom and soundproofed it, flipped open her comm unit, and pressed Phil Boyce's personal number.

He answered a moment or two later. "Liz. Is something wrong?"

"Dr. Boyce, what the hell is going on?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said, and she knew it was true.

"Starfleet has issued a press release saying that Pike's in a coma. He's not, and to my knowledge, has never been in a coma, other than a brief medically-induced one that McCoy put him in between surgeries early on."

"I'm going to kill them," Dr. Boyce said.

"That's what I thought," Liz said. "I'll be over in a moment." She flipped the comm closed, stormed out of the bathroom, and woke Chris up.

"Hmm?" he said sleepily.

"Chris, have you sent any messages out of this room on your padd?"

"Um . . ." She watched him try to pull himself together to answer her question. "A couple? Mostly to Number One or Phil. I sent one to Jim Kirk but he didn't respond."

"Okay," she said. "I'm leaving for a few minutes. Trust me on this one. Everything will be fine. I'll be back before you know it."

"Okay," he said, and closed his eyes.

She left a note on his padd anyway before she hit the intercom button. "Ensign O'Reilly, get me your CO."

"This is Lieutenant Commander Fthar."

"Lieutenant Commander, beam me the fuck out of here and if you lie and say that the beaming unit still doesn't work, or that it will in some way compromise the isolation chamber, or any other line of bullshit, I will have your head on a platter."

A moment later, she appeared in front of the intraoffice transport terminal. Lt. Cmdr. Fthar stood in O'Reilly's usual position, watching the controls, his arms folded in front of him. "Lieutenant Dehner, I don't believe you can order me around."

Liz stepped up closer to him, grateful that her height meant that she could look him straight in the eye, and said, "I'm not just Lieutenant Dehner, I'm Doctor Dehner, and _you have compromised my ability to treat a patient_. Not just a patient, but Captain Christopher Pike. You have twenty minutes to flood and re-seal the decontamination chamber for isolation room 1, or I will call in two captains, a commander, Pike's primary surgeon, and the 'Fleet Surgeon General, and you will be out of here so fast your hair will set on fire."

Fthar blanched and started pressing buttons on his console.

Liz stalked over to Dr. Boyce's office, where he was on a call with someone at top volume, trying to get her to explain why exactly they'd lied to the press. "I can answer that one, Dr. Boyce," she said.

He beckoned her over in front of the vidscreen. "Go for it, Dr. Dehner."

The woman on the screen—Liz recognized her as head of Starfleet's PR division—also blanched. "Dr. Boyce, I—"

"Not right now, Jackie. Liz?"

"This organization is so far backwards in terms of mental health that they're in the twentieth century," she spat. "They would rather sabotage my ability to treat the man who thought he was giving up his life to save the Federation and _intercept our outgoing messages_ than admit that he had to be in isolation for five days for treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder because he was _tortured_."

"Jackie, is that true?" Dr. Boyce turned from the screen to Liz and back again.

Jackie sighed. "We were getting questions."

"All you had to do," Liz said, still seething, "was _ask me_. Ask me if I would stay in there. Ask everyone to keep it quiet. Station security officers nearby. Tell the computer that it was someone entirely different in there. There are a thousand different ways to handle this that can't be spun into, 'We've got Captain Pike in a rubber room.'"

Jackie winced. "We can't control the press."

"But you can control what they get. Isn't that your entire reason for existence?" Liz said, her voice dripping with contempt.

"Who ordered this?" Dr. Boyce asked.

"One of her lieutenants did, but she signed off on it," Liz said. Jackie nodded, after a moment.

"Commander Wixon," he said, "you are not a doctor. You are not involved with Starfleet Medical. I will be drafting a set of procedures to guarantee that this never happens again, and I expect your resignation and that of your lieutenant in front of the admiralty tomorrow. If not, you may expect that I will push for a full hearing. Furthermore, you will issue a press release stating that Captain Pike is not in a coma; he's in isolation pending treatment for his injuries during the Battle for Vulcan and the Battle for Earth."

Commander Wixon's face turned to stone. "You cannot order that, Dr. Boyce."

"It's Admiral Boyce, Commander Wixon, and I very much can." Dr. Boyce stood up. "Boyce out." He flicked off the vidscreen. "Fuck."

"Yes," Liz agreed. "If you'll excuse me, I have a patient to treat."

"One sec, Liz. How did you know what was going on?"

She looked at him. "I've been complaining to you about Starfleet's view of mental health and PTSD for four years now."

Boyce raised an eyebrow at her.

"That, and my guesses get more accurate if I'm mad," she amended.

He nodded. "Okay. Dismissed."

"Thank you, sir." Liz stepped out, found a console, and said, "Computer, locate Captain Number One."

"Captain One is in room 338."

"Thank you." She took the turbolift to the third floor and found the captain in one of the patient rooms, speaking to a blonde woman under an osteoregenerator. "Captain One, do you have a moment?"

One nodded. "I'll see you later, Lieutenant Jarvis," she said to the woman, who nodded as well.

"Is something wrong with Captain Pike?" she asked as she stepped into the hallway.

"No," Liz said. "In fact, things may finally be right. I can get you into the isolation room now."

Her eyes widened, and she smiled. "Thank you, Dr. Dehner. Shall we?"

Liz led her down to the decontamination chamber, helped her smear the gel all over her back and got her help in return, and beamed into Chris's room mere moments later. He was asleep still, and Liz warned Number One not to touch him or crowd over him until he was awake. She ducked in the bathroom after ordering the room to lock and the windows to 100% opacity, sealed with her own code.

Forty-five minutes later, Liz got a message on her padd saying, _We're fully clothed now._ She sent back, _Ew! It's like thinking about my parents!_ before she opened the door and removed the locks on the room.

Chris was propped up in the bed, Number One sitting on the mattress by his feet, a blissful look on his face that Liz was absolutely not going to think about, being that they were certainly old enough to know better. "Your parents, Liz? I don't think we're _that_ old."

"I was born in 2232," she said.

He made a show of thinking for a moment. "Okay," he said, "we are that old, and you just told me how old you are."

Liz rolled her eyes.

"Anyway, counselor, when do we start normal therapy?"

"I don't know if I can be your therapist," she said.

"Why not?" Number One asked, as he looked up, alarmed.

Liz took a deep breath. "I may be leaving Starfleet, pending the results of a hearing."

"What happened?" Chris said, getting the 'captain' look on his face.

She sighed. "Starfleet PR ordered some of the techs here to fake numbers to prove that the intraoffice transport beam was not decontaminating properly. They also intentionally caused a leak in the decontamination chamber there—" she pointed to it "—which has since been fixed, thankfully. Last, but certainly not least, they intercepted your outgoing messages. I don't know how you knew he wasn't in a coma, sir," she said, turning to Number One, "but you appear to have been the only one outside Dr. Boyce, me, and a couple of transporter techs."

"He was sleeping on his side," One said. "Why would they do all that?"

"The point was to keep Captain Pike and me stuck in here so that it wouldn't leak to the press that he was in an isolation room, being treated for PTSD."

Her face hardened. "Did anyone think he _wasn't_ being treated for PTSD?"

Chris opened his mouth to speak, but Liz beat him to it. "This fucking organization—pardon my language, sirs—has been pretending for hundreds of years that no one gets PTSD in space. The advent of cothadrizone and zithroxaline made that easier, as they're just a series of shots, and people who have been in dangerous situations get all sorts of shots. Neucintex, well, since it requires an isolation protocol, has been lower on the list of things they like to use, even though it has almost double the success rate of cothadrizone and none of the cardiotoxcity of zithroxaline. I didn't know any of that before I joined up, and now that I know that this fucking place—pardon my language again, sirs—is willing to interfere with my ability to treat my patient in the best way I know how in order to maintain its spotless 'peacekeeping armada'—" complete with air quotes "—reputation, well, I feel I'd be better off in private practice. Sirs."

Number One and Chris exchanged a look. "That speech is precisely why you should stay in Starfleet, Dr. Dehner," she said. "Fix it from the inside."

"I've been trying, sir," she said, "but with this latest stunt, I feel like I've made absolutely no progress."

"I know how you feel," Chris said. "I was pretty sure I'd made no progress until Jim Kirk walked in and unstrapped me from Nero's table."

"What?" Liz said, although she did note that he'd managed to talk about the _Narada_ without a spike in his vital signs.

He leaned forward. "For the last twenty-five years, Starfleet has been churning out good little soldiers, but at one point in the past, we had leaders. Captains who had gut instincts and trusted them. Genius is all well and good—" Number One snorted "—but we need more intuition. I've been trying to recruit cadets with intuition to balance out the by-the-book types, and I thought I'd failed, even with Kirk, until the kid apparently took over my damn ship and saved the world."

Captain One had a half-smile on her face, like she'd heard the speech a few times before, but didn't comment.

"So I should stay because . . . " She trailed off. "Because you think Jim Kirk is going to shake things up?"

"He's already shaken things up," Chris said, "but no, I think you should stay in Starfleet because we need you. Someone has to keep the admiralty, in their nice, cushy offices, from forgetting that every time they send a ship on a mission, they're sending real, living people with real brains. Every single mission is an opportunity for who knows how many people to get harmed in ways that just don't show and ways that nobody likes to talk about. Well, we need to remember, and we need to talk about them, and Liz Dehner, I think you're exactly the person for the job."

Liz blinked, snapped her jaw shut, and said, "That's not fair."

"What's not fair?" Chris asked, obviously trying not to smile.

"You _know_ the result when you give your Starfleet Recruiter speeches." She crossed her arms in front of her and tried to look stern.

"Do I?" he asked.

"Yes, you do," she said, "or you wouldn't have that look on your face."

He immediately wiped his face clean, but Number One had hit the point where she couldn't contain her laughter anymore. "Oh, Dr. Dehner, please stay in Starfleet, if only so you can call Chris on his crap," she said, wheezing.

"I suppose I ought to," Liz said, her lips twitching.


End file.
